The Pulse | Politics | South Asia

Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising Probe: Shoddy Report, Hasty Action

There are suspicions that the probe committee investigating the violence during the two-day protests wanted to protect some people from prosecution.

Nepali youth protest in front of a government office at Bharatpur, Nepal, which was set alight on Sep. 9, 2025, the second day of the two-day uprising that brought down the K.P. Sharma Oli government.

Early on March 28, former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and his home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, were arrested. Curiously, the investigation report that provided the basis for their arrests has yet to be made public.

The Oli government was ousted during the two-day Gen Z uprising in September last year. The interim government of Sushila Karki had set up a committee to look into the killings and violence during those two days, when 77 people died and properties worth over $500 million were damaged.

Even as the investigation report was ready, the outgoing Karki government chose to sit on it. Perhaps it feared that the release of the report before the March 5 elections would spoil the poll climate.

The new government of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), which took office on March 27, is yet to officially release the report either. Yet, recently, it was leaked to the media.

The government, led by Balendra Shah, swung into action based on the same leaked report, and arrested Oli and Lekhak.

Among other things, the report recommended a criminal investigation of the two leaders for their “negligence” on the first day of the two-day uprising. This negligence, the report concludes, led to the deaths of 19 unarmed youths on September 8.

It also asks for investigations into the roles of senior bureaucrats and security officials who were implicated in the suppression of the protesting youth on the first day of the demonstrations. For instance, along with Oli and Lekhak, the committee recommended a criminal investigation against the then-inspector general of police, Chandra Kuber Khapung. Investigation was also recommended against other senior bureaucrats and security officials.

Yet the report made some critical omissions. For instance, while those responsible for trying to suppress the uprising on September 8 are named and recommended for investigation, the report is curiously silent on the events of September 9, the second day of the uprising that saw the torching of government buildings and businesses and deaths of over 50 people.

The committee said it did not have “enough time” to investigate events on the second day. However, it had been explicitly mandated to look into the causes of violence on both days and to hold those responsible to account. This, in turn, has raised suspicions that the committee, formed by a government at the........

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